On Fat

I’m fat.

I can feel you inhale…yes? It’s a strange (taboo?) thing to hear people say about themselves without a great swath of self loathing or compliment hunting. But it’s true. My BMI declares me overweight. This is not to say that I’m ugly or gross, or hideous, or unhealthy, or don’t take care of myself, or hate who I am, but…I’m fat.

Before we get any further, as it seems to bear…

I look like this:

And this:

And this:

As an aside, these pictures were all taken in the last eight months. I weigh within the same five pounds in all of them.

“FAT” fatfatfatfatfat. The word is so incredibly loaded. It has grown beyond its actual definition (from Merriam Webster: 1 : notable for having an unusual amount of fat) and into a slur, a vicious judgment, the last socially acceptable prejudice. It is one of the words you simply cannot hurl without injury.

You, assuming that YOU are not fat, probably know better than I do what people mean when they use this word, actually. Only very rarely is the word “fat” used in front of a fat person. I’ve been distanced from the social use and discussion of the word, and how it is used on the other side of the fence, where the thin people are, because I have spent, literally, my whole life overweight. It was one of the first two things I knew about myself: 1.) redhead (awesome), 2.) fat (ugh).

It’s an interesting context to grow up with because every part of your life happens through the filter of “Fat Girl.” Before you are anything, you are fat. You’ll have to take my word on that for the moment before I get around to exploring that topic here, which I eventually will. Suffice it to say that I was grew up under the care of a 6 foot, 600 pound narcissist with addiction issues who basically killed herself with her weight loss efforts and a man who did a really good job of running for cover and enabling this tragic slide. (But we watched a bunch of The Muppet Show, so that was cool.) Obvs, there’s some genetic stuff in there as well, but I’m gonna cut to the chase and say that with the combination of nature and nurture, I was kind of screwed before I even got started. I have always been a fat person, I have no memory of being anything other.

To meet me with my friends, you would likely refer to me as the fat girl (oh excuse me – large…heavy…big – and you might whisper it so as not to seem rude), and, frankly, I am, in the circles I travel. But that does not necessarily mean what you think it means, apologies to Fezig.

So – here’s the thing, I eat well, I exercise, I have kept close to fifty pounds of weight off for over ten years( a rarely accomplished feat, if I don’t say so myself). You’d never know these things to see me on the street, and that pretty much is what it is. I’m not the thinnest I’ve ever been right now, but I’m always fighting to get there without living a life that is focused on the concept of thin = happy, because that is fools gold. Could I exercise even more? Sure. Could I eat even better? Yeah. Do I sometimes lose the fight over my body’s irrational impulse to eat too much? Or crap? Or emotionally? Sure. I could work out for an hour seven days a week, and cook every single meal from scratch, rather than just the 95% I do now and give up the entire rest of my life in order to attain this one ideal.

Or I could preserve some time, and energy, and mental space for the people and the things that I love. Hitting the gym three times a week, not cooking every twelfth meal, and calling that a happy medium so that I can suck the marrow of joy from the rest of my life.

Am I perfect? Not by a long shot.
Am I happy? Yeah.
Am I lucky? Incredibly.

I can’t control how the world perceives me. That is a ridiculously unwinnable battle. I control my choices, and can really only judge myself from where I’ve come.

So – I’ll choose joy, and I’ll rock my fat ass, and I give you full permission to judge me as you will.